Letters from Louise Mirrer

President and CEO of the New-York Historical Society

July 2014

Please join me in welcoming the renowned Picasso curtain painting, Le Tricorne, into the collections of the New-York Historical Society. The painting that has hung inside the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York since 1959 has been gifted to the New-York Historical Society by its owner, the Landmarks Conservancy. After necessary conservation, Tricorne will be installed in our second floor Dexter Hall Gallery, among other treasures from our permanent collection selected by Museum Director Brian Allen and his colleagues.

The work has been an icon of New York for more than half a century, embodying both an influential social milieu and an important moment in the city's cultural development. As an institution that preserves, studies and exhibits the artifacts of a continually changing city, we are grateful for the opportunity to present Tricorne as a visible testimony to New York's past. Because it is a tradition at New-York Historical to make an acquisition associated with each of our major exhibitions, we are especially delighted to receive this extraordinary work in the immediate aftermath of our exhibition The Armory Show at 100, reflecting on the moment when European modernism became central to the cultural life of New York. I very much look forward to inviting you to view Tricorne at a future date.